The Broadcast Engineering Conservation Group
Long live Vivat! – Jeffrey Borinsky and Paul Marshall
When we wrote about some of our outside broadcast (OB) trucks in the Winter 2019 Bulletin, we said a little about Vivat, our oldest truck, but this fascinating project deserves a closer look. It is a re-creation, as near as is technically possible, of an OB truck that was used at the Queen’s coronation on 2 June 1953.
Continue reading “Long Live Vivat!”By Dan Cranefield, Senior Engineering Manager, BBC Tel OBs.
Dan Cranefield looks into the beginnings of location drama shot on videotape instead of film.
Continue reading “Early Location Drama in Colour”Richard’s Roving Eye article continues to evolve, with more history appearing!
Updates include:
By Dan Cranefield, Senior Engineering Manager, BBC Tel OBs
After the war BBC Television Outside Broadcasts (Tel OBs) operated from their base at the Palace of Arts in Wembley, one of the substantial buildings which were built there specially for the British Empire Exhibition in 1924. Some of these buildings were put to other uses later on.
Continue reading “My “Palace of Arts” Days”Richard’s article about The BBC Roving Eye vehicles has been updated again, as more information is being brought to our attention!
The latest update includes some colour pictures of REII at Churchill’s funeral and some new pictures of NYN 286Y.
Coming soon: Richard Harris looks at the history of the BBC’s generator trucks.
There were only ever ten of these as eventually the BBC simply hired generators from outside organisations.
Richard’s article relates everything that he could discover about each of the ten.
By Richard Harris
There is more to consider when providing power for an outside broadcast unit than arriving on-site and plugging into the nearest socket outlet. Safety and compliance with regulations concerning use of power need to be taken into account, particularly when the public are present. There are some complex technical and legal issues involved.
Continue reading “Project Vivat – Power System considerations”By Dan Cranefield, Senior Engineering Manager, BBC Tel OBs.
Dan Cranefield recalls his involvement with the BBC coverage of the 40th and 50th anniversaries of the D Day landings from Arromanches and Bayeux in France.
Continue reading “BBC coverage of 40th and 50th anniversaries of the D Day landings”Robin Stonestreet has been in touch with us with a list of BBC CMCRs (Colour Mobile Control Rooms). This draws on earlier work by Jerry Clegg with extra input from Brian Summers and Richard Harris.
Continue reading “BBC CMCR list”